It is rare that any single election shapes the American political landscape.
Kennedy versus Lodge the 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race
(Thomas J. Whalen, Northeastern University Press, 2000) singles out one such election.
"Had Kennedy lost in 1952," Whalen muses, "it is likely that his political career would have
ended right there, and the so-called Kennedy political dynasty would have been over before it
had actually begun." We can never know of course. In any event, the multigenerational
Kennedy versus Lodge political rivalry makes for an interesting human story and affords many
object lessons in campaigning.

Can't tell the players without a program.

Henry Cabot Lodge was a four-term incumbent Republican Senator when he defeated Democrat
challenger John Fitzgerald in 1916 in the first direct election of U.S. Senator from
Massachusetts. His grandson, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., was elected to the seat in 1936 and was
defeated in 1952 by John Fitzgerald's grandson John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's defeat of Lodge,
in the words of Rose Kennedy--JFK's mother; John Fitzgerald's daughter--"evened the score"
for the Lodge defeat of Fitzgerald 36 years earlier.

During those intervening years, Joseph Kennedy became one of the richest men in America,
got himself named Ambassador to Great Britain, and produced a new generation of Ivy League
educated Kennedys who could rival the Brahmin Lodges in patrician status.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., after losing the 1952 Senate election, went on to lose again in
1960, as Richard Nixon's running mate in the Nixon/Kennedy race. His brother,
George Cabot Lodge, ran, unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1962. He lost to Edward M.
Kennedy.

Money, hard work, demographics

While Whalen seems to credit smart and vigorous campaigning on Kennedy's part and failure
to consolidate the Republican base for the Lodge defeat in 1952, there were other, powerful
forces. Simply put, there was the Kennedy money. In 1946 Joseph Kennedy spent--at the
time a staggering amount--$300,000 to secure a House seat for John F. Kennedy.
With Kennedy money things happen. Such as the influential Boston Post, which was set to
endorse Lodge, switching and pushing for Kennedy in 1952. The financial strapped publisher
denied that a half million dollar loan from Joseph Kennedy influenced the endorsement.

Still, no amount of advertising money can get voters to go for a politician they don't want.
In 1952 Massachusetts voters were ready for Kennedy. Massachusetts before World War II
had been one of the most Republican of states, but demographics were changing rapidly.
As Whalen points out, "The state went from being predominately Republican to predominately
Democrat in the span of half a decade." In has never gone back. Demographics, in particular
immigration, was working against the Republicans. The Democrats also benefited from an
aggressive campaign style that had never before been seen in the Bay State.
One Kennedy campaign staffer is quoted saying, "we went into towns where Democrat was a
dirty word and nobody had tried to start an organization of any kind."

Lodge saw his vote totals eroded in traditionally Republican areas. At the same time Kennedy support in traditionally Democrat Boston went up. Lodge had actually carried Boston in some earlier elections--an astounding feat for a Protestant Yankee Republican. But faced with a new type of Irish Catholic Democrat--Harvard educated, smooth talking, and not a crook--Lodge got steamrollered.

Don't forget who brought you to the dance

Kennedy money and charm among an electorate that was tending Democrat was a tough match
for Lodge. But they perhaps needn't have been his undoing. Lodge lost to Kennedy by only
70,000 votes (51.5% to 48.5%). Republican presidential candidate Eisenhower carried
Massachusetts. Lodge must have taken some solace in Eisenhower's victory. Lodge had,
through the spring and summer of 1952 quite neglected his own campaign while working to
engineer Eisenhower's convention victory over the choice of the party faithful--Senator
Robert A. Taft.

Lodge's anti-Taft sentiment was the product of his stern, even sanctimonious, liberalism.
He was convinced that Taft as Republican nominee, would not only lose in November, but in
losing would, "destroy the two-party system and thus our ability to bring about orderly
change in America, shaking the very foundations of our government." Asked at the 1952
Republican national Convention to delay a vote that would be embarrassing to Senator
Taft, Lodge responded, "I will not consort with evil."

Needless to say, his extremism came back to hurt him when those Taft Republicans deserted
Lodge in November. Moreover, conservatives didn't find the prospect of a Kennedy win all
that unsettling. In fact, on one of the biggest issues of the time--how to respond to the
communist threat--many were saying that Kennedy was the more conservative of the two.

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), who was very popular among Bay State Irish Catholics
because of his anti-communist positions, was a friend of the Kennedys and had received
Kennedy family campaign contributions. Lodge, on the other hand, had not gotten on well
with McCarthy in the Senate, and was loath to have the fellow Republican campaign for him
in Massachusetts for fear of offending his liberal Republican supporters who were so much
a fixture in the party establishment then, as now.

Kennedy versus Lodge serves as an excellent text for what a campaigner should
do--start early, work hard, grow your base. The book is flawed by a higher than usual
number of typographical errors--including the consistent misspelling of the name of Kennedy's
important Cambridge adviser--and father of the current mayor of Cambridge--Anthony Galluccio.
Such small errors always raise the specter of general sloppiness. But in this case,
the proofreader's inadequacies are his own; the author seems to have mastered the materials
and told the story in a masterful way.

[David Trumbull is Chairman of the Cambridge Republican City Committee.]CambGOP@aol.com.]